


Omnes te moriturum amant

by zulu



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angst, Character of Colour, Community: hl_bday_drive, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-14
Updated: 2010-10-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 12:44:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zulu/pseuds/zulu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Omnes te moriturum amant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gileonnen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/gifts).



> Thank you to my betas, bell and thedeadparrot.

"Code Seven, Code Seven."

Taub stops where he's standing, his shoulders dropping in resigned surrender. The announcement might as well say 'Abandon all hope...' It probably wouldn't panic the patients any more, and it would be a lot more accurate.

"All non-essential personnel and guests, please remain where you are. Security personnel should report to their staging areas and await further instructions. All patients please remain in your rooms..."

Taub looks up, already too reconciled to his fate to bother with an eyeroll, as the voice drones on. He doesn't expect any better, and he's not blaming a vengeful God for putting him in this predicament. All he can manage is a dismal acknowledgement that it's a sign of what his life has become that this is happening to him.

"...use call buttons if you need medical assistance. Please remain calm and wait for hospital personnel to come to you. Do not try to leave your room..."

Naturally. It's not as though Taub has anywhere to go. Though there are probably worse places to be trapped. He's alone in a vault of patient and staff files, and he's going to be locked in for the next who knows how long, but at least he won't have to grimace his way through 'Yes, this situation really _is_ that annoying' small talk in his designated staging area.

"We cannot allow anyone to leave the hospital at this time. All personnel should remain in their staging areas unless otherwise instructed..."

Taub takes the file tucked under his arm and slaps it lightly against his thigh. The McKenna case came back from the insurance company for review. Which about ninety percent of their cases do. It takes a lot of tedious detail-checking, and accusations about who the hell signed off on whatever test House manoeuvred them into agreeing was necessary. For his part, House won't remember McKenna without the helpful reminder of 'bleeding from her eyeballs,' and even then he might blank on the name. For Diagnostics, that's a pretty non-specific symptom.

The paperwork can moulder incomplete for the next twenty fiscal years and House wouldn't notice. Foreman, though, looked down the conference table with his patented 'I expect you all to jump for joy at the prospect of paperwork' eyebrow raise, his lips pressed together expectantly. Thirteen and Taub shared a glance that encompassed a complex exchange of IOUs and a mental game of rock paper scissors, and finally Taub sat back, defeated. "I'll get it."

"Great," Thirteen said, with a brilliant smile that she would deny was crowing. "See you all tomorrow."

Foreman left it at that, just gave Taub one last pass with the fish-eye that said (and it's another symptom of a very sad life that Taub spends his days interpreting and cataloguing Foreman's patronising looks) 'I will be deeply disappointed if you forget.' He then proceeded to set up shop in front of the office computer, probably to hack House's prank expenses out of the department budget, submit more paper proposals, or just...do whatever Foreman does, in his time off. Taub can't picture what that might be, and he's not inclined think too deeply about it. He might end up paralyzed with boredom. With his luck, he'd end up under House's definition of patient care.

Instead, he gets the honour of playing the fetch-and-carry. At least it's a quiet way to end a day's work. What would he do if he couldn't fill his time with pointless busywork? He could go home--surprise Rachel--if she's there. Taub grimaces painfully. He wants to want that. It's supposed to be romantic, surprising your wife at home by coming home early from the office. He could bring flowers, or call for a dinner reservation first. But these days, the thought of facing her after a day cut unexpectedly short by their patient actually _living_ isn't one he wants to think about. She'd suspect his motives. Or, since she's no fool, wonder what game House is playing with his time.

If he went home early, it's just as likely that Rachel will look for the hidden trick, for what he's hiding, for the guilt she assumes he feels. Taub knows perfectly well that he won't earn back his right to unsupervised hours, to early nights and sudden urges to eat lunch outside the hospital cafeteria, without suspicion and paranoia, probably for the rest of his life. He's human; he has the unbounded capacity to recognize it's his own fault and to resent it at the same time.

With two hours left before the end of the day, he had the grand responsibility of grabbing a file. Better that than stay in Diagnostics, with Foreman taking up all the psychic space in the conference room, and Thirteen pulling on her coat and mentioning with a total lack of artfulness that maybe she'll go for a latte in the cafeteria before heading home to a nice dinner and a glass of wine. She's not trying to rub it in to Taub that she won their silent battle royale, although that might be what she'd admit to, if she admitted to anything. After all, if she's mocking Taub, then her words aren't meant for Foreman, who's so very clearly making an impossible effort not to listen and an even more futile one not to care. Yeah, they're doing just _fine_.

After she's gone, Taub leaves his suit jacket over the back of a chair and heads for the exciting wilderness of the sub-basement. Without his lab coat, he looks more like a tired accountant than a doctor. The lab coat at least lends authority. The more desperate patients--and especially their loved ones--will spot him anyway. The mythical doctor with no where to rush to; no excuse to make. He's been buttonholed before in the halls for daring not to have a dozen patients to see all at once.

Or maybe there's something in his face. Taub is a good plastic surgeon. Hell, a great one. And he's seen himself in the mirror: the tiredness around his eyes, the turned-down corners of his mouth that a forced smile doesn't do much to hide. He's a doctor, and if somebody's intent on dying, he'll be called into the room. He won't object. It's something, to be asked to officiate over the most important part of someone's life.

After all, he's only a file monkey, otherwise. Taub would rather be a doctor, even if only for a few minutes. And as long as wishes are going cheap, he'd rather be a better doctor than he's become.

He takes the elevator down to the lower level, and then meanders along the corridors towards Records, nodding at the janitors he passes. No one else is down here at this time of night. He swipes his hospital ID at the door. Anyone with even a shaky grasp of the alphabet could run this errand, and within a matter of moments, Taub has the patient file. It's his lucky day; he's managed to extend a five minute chore into a ten-minute chore, so that he can go back to the conference room and make bored sounds until Foreman rolls his eyes and orders him to take the rest of the day off.

Yippee.

He's on his way back to the door when he sees a row of boxes that aren't the dull yellowed brown of the old patient file boxes. These are deeper brown, the labels a crisper white, and before Taub thinks about it, he's turned along one of the aisles, with his forefinger drifting along the undusty side of the boxes.

Which is when the smooth female voice comes over the P.A. system, explaining the Code Seven like a cruise director on the Titanic announcing that they're only taking on a _little_ water.

"...please remain in your rooms until the Code Seven has been lifted. Thank you for your patience and cooperation."

Taub pokes his head around the side of the stack. "Hello?" he calls in the direction of the doors, with self-conscious doubtfulness. There's no answer, but he didn't expect one. Taub shrugs, and turns back to the boxes he's found.

HR files. He got the memo along with everyone else. Everything's being digitized, this week and next. Those with issues, please fill out the attached form in triplicate. Taub doesn't want to think about what glee Foreman might take in the prospect of more forms. More ways to show Cuddy what a kiss-ass--er, or kick-ass, that is--administrator he is. Taub glances over his shoulder, and then back to the boxes, his eyebrows lifting in interest. During this period, access to Records will be restricted only to authorized personnel.

For the briefest second, Taub's actually impressed that he's 'authorized personnel', but even that is a mild feeling, tinged with ironic dissatisfaction. So he's trusted about as much as the file clerks who spend their eight-dollar-an-hour days scanning HR files. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Taub sucks in a breath, and takes one last look around the end of the aisle. No one in sight, and he's locked in with all the patient records. The Code Seven might be lifted at any time. Depends on how stupid the patient they've lost is. A confused geriatric case might not make it far, but a hallucinating, paranoid psych patient could lead Security on a merry chase. He could be in here all night. Taub nods, his decision made, and takes down the first box.

* * *

Chris was valedictorian of his high school class. Valedictorian, and younger than most of his classmates. He would still be seventeen, if only just, when he started college. He had everything planned out. How to cram a double major into four years (pre-med biology and organic chemistry). How to get in to the med school of his choice. He wasn't a genius--it was a meaningless concept anyway, he argued with everybody who made that crack--but he was used to being smarter than the people around him. Just a little quicker, just a little more pointedly sarcastic. He went to college expecting to graduate on the fast track, summa cum laude and already moving on to better things.

* * *

The first files he finds are--to use one of House's favourite expressions--boring. Average people living average lives. Dr. Lee went to community college before getting into some workhorse university. Dr. Taylor took a gap year and apparently dropped off the face of the earth for the entire time. There are reprimands and administrative absences that add up to mistakes and malpractice suits, but nothing extraordinary. No heroes and no villains. It's morbidly depressing, if Taub lets himself think about it too hard. He closes the box and sits down on it heavily, peeking under the lid of the second one, as if he might find a genie inside, or at least a surprise.

"What are you doing?"

Taub twists around. Foreman has appeared at the end of the stack. He stalks up the aisle, frowning at Taub as if he's a child out after curfew. Taub taps his fingers on the lid of his box. Foreman's a nice guy and all, although he's hell to work for if House isn't constantly cutting him down to size. He just doesn't get that there's a limit to how much anyone can follow the rules when there is zero evidence that following the rules will help them get ahead. "Investigating my colleagues," Taub tells him. "It's a job skill. I think I'll use it as an example of my initiative at my next performance review."

Foreman looks affronted, which isn't unusual, but which also means the dig about the performance reviews went home. Taub doesn't smile, but he turns back to the box he's rifling through and peeks at another dismal college GPA. "Was trusting me to find a file asking just a little too much of your faith in humanity?" he asks.

"I could have been working on it already," Foreman snits, but Taub, or the Code Seven, have taken the wind out of his sails.

"Or you could take a break," Taub says. "I know the concept of a 'break' eludes you--" He shakes his head. He sets the boring box aside and stands up to look along the shelf again.

"You shouldn't be looking at these."

"Do you think the etymology of the word 'rectitude' really comes from some guy with a stick up his ass?" Taub says. "Because by my calculations, you've got him beat." He pauses to stare expectantly at Foreman, but other than the eternal constipated frown, he doesn't get a reaction. He shakes his head and gives in. "I'm looking for House's files."

Investigating House has to appeal most to Foreman's neurotic competitiveness, that delirious state he gets into in which he thinks he's remotely as good as House. Foreman would take whatever fairy-gold reasons from House's past to prove it to himself. Foreman blinks, and then the face he wears for the hospital cracks, just a little. "He probably has a shelf to himself," he says.

Taub grins. Diversion successful. "Nope. Right here." He taps on the box marked H. The motherlode. Every case House ever screwed up, every reputation Cuddy ever greased to keep his medical license out of the fire. Foreman steps closer, almost off-handedly, as if Taub doesn't have him hooked right through his inferiority complex. They both take a file, eye each other, and start reading.

Of course, it doesn't take long to find out that when House games the system, he doesn't stop at half-measures. Balls to the wall and fake files out the wazoo. Taub watches Foreman's as he realizes it, with the familiar aspirin taste in the back of his throat that he gets when he realizes House really is going to go there. Wherever 'there' might be. It was less than a week after being recruited into House's game that Taub had figured out that there was no such thing as a line. He's half-certain he got this job by calmly stepping past any sign-posts helpfully labelling the road to Hell.

"That's not the only way to get into House's head," Foreman says. He sounds petulant, and Taub holds back a sigh. He was hoping House's antics would keep them busy long enough for Security to find whoever's missing.

But Foreman reaches into his pocket and pulls out an unlabelled prescription bottle. He raises an eyebrow, and Taub laughs shortly. He was sure Foreman was about to get on his case for reading the files again. Instead, the clack of pills as Foreman shakes the bottle make his challenge perfectly clear.

"Take a limp in House's shoes?" Taub nods, impressed despite himself. Foreman might have a kernel of fun in him after all. Taub takes the bottle and rattles it, then taps one of the Vicodin into his palm. It looks huge. He hates swallowing pills dry, but House does--did--it all the time. "I'm game."

Foreman snorts. His one raised eyebrow is more eloquent than a dozen clucking-chicken noises. "I think House plays in a bigger league than that." He pours two into his palm and then judiciously adds another. With a toss of his head that looks disturbingly like House, Foreman gets one down, grimaces, and then pops the next two back one after the other.

There's no one around. They're locked in. And there's no way a stick in the mud like Foreman can handle more than Taub.

He takes three.

* * *

By the end of med school, Chris was within a hair's breadth of top of his class. But it was a hair seen under the microscope, thick and scaly as a rope, strong enough to hang yourself by. Chris all but killed himself--ha ha, bad joke--during exams. There were five points between him and a lanky silver-spoon asshole who probably slept the night before the last final and ate a good breakfast the morning of the test. Who probably shook the hand of the invigilator and left the exam hall early, closing the door on the sour smell of desperation. His name was Jackson Harris. The closest he came to acknowledging Chris's existence was with a distant, hearty handshake when they were introduced at the graduation rehearsal.

GPA didn't mean a thing in the real world. It had nothing to do with getting published, getting funded, or getting ahead. Chris grit his teeth, smiled pleasantly, and delivered the salutatorian address with bile in his throat.

* * *

"Dude," Taub says.

That one word encompasses so much--the spinning room, the smooth glassy distance between his body's sensations and his reaction time, the way everything's warmer and wavier and just a little uncertain. Taub's never been stoned like this before. He'll admit to some weed in college, and cocaine once at a med school party. Drugs make you cool, kids. Even if it's a lie that they help you get close to 'the right people.' Maybe there were never any such people. Maybe networking through better blow was always an excuse.

Either way, smoking up stung his eyes and burned in his chest. The coke left him paranoid and panicked, so that he couldn't even enjoy the buzz. Vicodin, on the other hand, seems to be just right. Shit. He's a stoner Goldilocks. He giggles.

"What?"

Taub raises one hand, examines it to make sure it's his, and then waves it above his face in explanation. "Everything's..."

There's a pause. Taub senses more than sees Foreman nod solemnly. "Yeah," he agrees.

Yeah.

Taub takes a risk and rolls his head to his right. Foreman's lying on the floor too. Taub wonders if it feels as deliciously cool against his back the way it does against Taub's. Probably not. Foreman's wearing a leather jacket. Not a suit. He was on his way home. And his eyelashes--Taub is certain he never noticed before--are very, very pretty. Taub can nearly count each one. He wonders if anyone has ever decided on what to call the exact shade of brown of Foreman's eyes.

Maybe he should stop lying on the floor so close to Foreman.

There is nothing wrong with finding a colleague attractive. Experimentally, he tries to tell that to Rachel in his head. It doesn't work out as well as he'd hoped. Even in his mind, he can't get the upper hand. Then he loses his prestigious job and his marriage and his country club membership--oh yeah. That happened. Is happening. And the last thing he wants to do is spend the high being maudlin. That's bad enough when he's drunk. "I'm going to stand up," he announces.

Matching actions with words is distinctly difficult, but he does it eventually. Whatever the Vicodin's doing to him (and if Taub weren't stoned he'd be able to describe the biochemical processes precisely), it's very, very nice.

Very.

"You're not short," Foreman tells him. He's lying nearly under Taub's feet with a silly grin on his face. "From down here."

"Thanks," Taub tells him, and he might be off his head, but he's still got a handle on his sarcasm. Why doesn't Foreman ever smile, the rest of the time? He's got enough to be happy about. More than Taub does. Whatever the advantage of having 'team leader' on your resume confers. And he's prettier. When he smiles.

"I always hated getting stoned," Foreman says, in a slow, meditative voice. "In college. Loved it in high school. My dad smelled the pot, though. Wow, I'm telling you a lot."

Taub keeps himself steady with one hand on the nearest shelving unit. "Why'd you hate it in college?" he asks, not quite able to keep the laughter out of his voice. Not his fault. Foreman in a confessional mood is just _funny_.

"Everyone expected it," Foreman says. He really does sound almost human when he's not infusing his voice with pomposity. "Expected me to _want_ to get high. And they were asses. Especially when they were high."

" _You're_ an ass," Taub points out. He nods, because it's very true. Taub has volunteered to perform _enemas_ to escape Foreman's presence. And he screwed Thirteen. Taub pauses, reverses his train of thought, and tries again: he screwed Thirteen _over_. Well, both. Very assholish. Taub rubs at his jaw, because he can't feel his face. "I can't feel my face."

Foreman rolls to one side, then the other, like a turtle stuck on its shell. Taub laughs at him helplessly until Foreman manages to make it to his feet. Even though he shouldn't think any of this is funny. When _he_ was in high school, he wouldn't have known where to get his hands on drugs if his life had depended on it. Getting stuffed into gym lockers, sure. Having people ask to borrow pencils for tests, all the time. But never drugs. He was, in a word, a nerd. And in college: they were never _his_ drugs. They were never his _parties_. He had girlfriends, though. Lots of girlfriends at the same time. Then they found out about each other. And suddenly no girlfriends at all.

Foreman's on his feet now. Taub leans back against the shelves, his head resting on a cardboard box, and watches him. His leather coat looks soft, although the shirt he's wearing underneath has an absolutely freakish pattern. "I barely graduated," Foreman says, and then he frowns. "Why am I telling you that?"

"Lucky you," Taub says dryly. The bastard probably had _real_ extracurricular activities. Not something cocked up for college admissions essays. Well, Taub knows about the joyrides, and the break-and-enters. How could House fail to share those little tidbits? By the same token, everyone in Diagnostics has to know why Taub left his practice. Secrets and House meet at the mouthpiece of a megaphone.

Strange, he can't exactly picture Foreman doing anything called a _joy_ ride. Although it's easier to imagine when Foreman's stoned. He should laugh more. And lean closer to Taub--he's easier to grip than the shelf, and warmer to lean against. "Stay still," Taub says. The floor has nearly stopped bucking.

Foreman steadies Taub--or uses him as a leaning post--with his hands on Taub's forearms. "I always get horny when I'm high," he confesses, in his same mournful, casual tone. His eyes are wide and liquid and earnest. He lets his head fall forward, like a little gesture of defeat. "God. Why am I still talking?"

Taub laughs--what else can he do? He's clinging to _Foreman_ \--eight years younger than him and his _boss_ \--and trying to ride out the waves under his feet, and Foreman is _horny_. "How did you survive getting high in high school," he said, "if you told your friends everything?"

Foreman smiles brilliantly at him, looking entirely too pleased with himself, and suddenly gut-clenchingly handsome in a way that his usual dourness completely erases. That's the problem with Foreman. If he's not being an ass, he's been a _smug_ ass. "I had a friend who didn't mind," he says, and starts laughing, his head falling onto Taub's shoulder.

Oh, great. Now Foreman's trusting Taub to hold both of them up. Gravity doesn't seem to be a constant any more. Nothing's constant that should be. Why did Taub think he could get insight into House by getting stoned? Genius would never be as easy as that. Never something within Taub's reach.

He pats Foreman's back gently. His stomach flips, and he's suddenly sweating, caught between anxiety and interest. He's a stoned forty-four year old gofer, he's lost down in Records surrounded by other lives that don't matter just as much as his. As steadily as he can, he says, "I don't mind."

Foreman jerks up and back with an expression of dopey surprise. Taub's still got a grip on his biceps and keeps him steady. He lifts his eyebrows, and nods once to a question Foreman hasn't asked.

* * *

Chris loved Rachel with all his heart. On the day they were married, he could swear he didn't see anyone else in the room; everything was a blur except the glowing happiness on her face. He wanted to be _with her_ all the time. Love had never hit him like that before, with the heart-clutching feeling that work, friends, hobbies didn't matter as long as he had her.

He'd had his years to travel around the world, to give selflessly. The surgeries he'd performed would never be forgotten, not by the kids whose palates he'd fixed, the club feet he'd worked on with orthopedic surgeons, the abscesses and goiters he'd erased like they'd never been. He'd been to conferences, accepted congratulations from his peers for a dozen smaller successes and at least one technique--nothing revolutionary, but actually _useful_ in reducing post-surgical keloid development--that was really his triumph.

He was thirty-one years old when he stood up to give the wedding toast. He was a rising star in his field, and Rachel was smiling at him. What he'd become next didn't scare him for a second.

* * *

Taub watches the dip and slide of Foreman's larynx as he swallows. It seems like Taub should be able hear more than he can. The fans that keep Records cool and dry. The hum of the hospital heating plant. His own voice saying, _Ha, just kidding. Seriously, did you have some insane need to bang _all_ your coworkers? Because I'm pretty sure the drama quotient in our department is high enough as it is._

He doesn't say that. But the words he did say--that he doesn't _mind_ that Foreman is horny? What the hell possessed him?--are still echoing between them. Foreman looks a little wistful and a little mistrustful, as if he's not sure Taub said what he said.

He really shouldn't have said what he said. "What did your friend do?" he asks instead. It's probably not the Vicodin that's making him feel this dizzy. In a distant way, he realizes that Foreman's leather jacket really is that soft under his sweaty hands.

He might not be able to see a blush on Foreman's face, but it's obvious from the way Foreman lifts his chin defensively. Taub doesn't say anything. Foreman's too close to being spooked as it is. Eventually, whatever trips the mechanism in Foreman's brain that keeps him babbling when he's stoned goes off, and almost sulkily, he says, "We'd smoke up and jerk off to porn."

Yeah, Foreman definitely had much more interesting extracurricular activities in high school than Taub could have imagined. "That...sounds really good," Taub says. His penis is in solemn agreement with the idea. It's really been a long time. He's been in more or less of a drought ever since Rachel found out about Barbara. Even when they do have sex, Taub spends most of his time either coaxing or reassuring or working hard not to let out a whisper of comparison. If he ever once asks Rachel for something more or different, he knows she would shut down as fast as if he'd blurted out, "Barbara would..."

Foreman's stare hasn't wavered, although it's gotten steadily more thoughtful and assessing, as if he's trying to think up ways to trick Taub into admitting he was only kidding. Finally, with pointed deliberation, Foreman shifts his grip to Taub's waist, just above his belt.

Just because Foreman's hands are large and warm through Taub's shirt does not mean that Taub's going to let him win any game of oneupsmanship. He meets Foreman's eyes with his driest, most skeptical look, and grabs him by the belt with one hand, for stability, and with the other, he reaches for Foreman's crotch.

Taub arches his eyebrows, but all he lets show is a surprised blink, mostly due to a lifetime habit of using bland reactions to keep the upper hand. "You really weren't kidding."

Foreman tilts his head as if to say 'I told you so,' which is the look of his that Taub has most consistently despised for the almost three years he's known him. Foreman's expression takes on a sort of distant satisfaction, and he says, "It feels better stoned."

"What does?" Taub asks, with a swallow of his own.

Foreman grins. "Everything."

* * *

When Chris dies, he assumes that somebody--maybe more than one--will stand up and say a few comforting words. Maybe it's not healthy how often he's pictured it. Maybe it's selfish, or narcissistic, or simply stubborn of him, that it's a picture that keeps him going more days than it should. He's not sure who the somebody delivering his elegy will be. In his nightmares, it's House, being scrupulously honest, detailing Chris's every flaw, and wrapping up with an offhand bit of praise that nobody will remember.

Or so he'd tell anyone who asked.

At least House would be honest. Whatever he said, Chris could trust that he meant it, in his twisted way. Anybody else--Chris can only assume they'd be two-faced about it.

Whatever gets said, though, won't erase the real truth. That there's really nothing much to say. That he was a bright kid who fizzled out somewhere after med school. That all his life he was an also-ran. He can picture that too. Colleagues excusing themselves from speaking because they didn't know him quite well enough. The ones who are trapped into into it, or guilty enough to need that last bit of closure, fumbling for something to say. Each one pausing, considering, and then using less-flattering synonyms for 'brilliant' that are simply easier to say.

Maybe silence would be best after all.

* * *

He somehow wasn't expecting Foreman to kiss him. Taub kisses back, mostly out of curiosity, because otherwise Foreman seems to have things well in hand. Not a euphemism--oh God. Not a euphemism. The seam of his shorts and the zip on his pants are still in the way but Foreman's firm rubbing already feels excruciatingly good. Taub does his best to catch up and loses his grip on Foreman's belt in the process. They stumble into the shelves and Taub breaks the kiss with a grunt.

Foreman smiles at him affectionately, which is just so _weird_. Taub blinks before grinning back. "So, you really--?" he starts.

"I didn't start this to hash out my whole life," Foreman says, with some of his usual impatience.

"Right," Taub says. "Of course." He focuses on Foreman's belt and gets it open, then does the same for himself. They're going to end up in such a mess. He laughs a bit, although he's not sure it's funny. Foreman's the one who unzips and pulls Taub's hand inside. "Silk boxers," Taub says at random.

"I like them," Foreman says with a pout, and then he rolls his eyes and kisses Taub again. His fingers fumble through Taub's polyester pants and cotton shorts (seriously, does Foreman spend his entire salary on his warddrobe?), and then he's jacking Taub slowly. The sensation rises like a slow, steady realization that finally emerges from Taub's mouth as a moan. He returns the favour, getting his fingers through the slit in Foreman's boxers. Foreman's erection is...impressive. Taub is by no means insecure, but he's happy that they don't have the supplies to get any more elaborate than handjobs. Handjobs are--stupid, messy, panting, awkward as hell, with his knees threatening to give out under him at any minute.

God, it really does feel good. It's not that it's better stoned. The pleasure is the same, hot and urgent. But his mind seems dedicated to paying attention to it. Recording every shudder and spike. Taub's not thinking about his taxes or his bad parking job that could get the door of his car dented. He's not thinking about Rachel and not thinking about how he should be.

Sex stoned doesn't _feel_ better. But it distracts him, fills him up, and finally spills over. Everything is temperatures and textures, vivid in a way Taub can't quite hold on to, that leaves him breathing harshly and groping for his bearings. Foreman gets his beard in Taub's mouth for a moment before managing another long kiss. Another moment or two, and Foreman's body spasms and then there's that sticky, quickly cooling mess all over his fingers that Taub has no idea how to clean off. Foreman groans, lets all his weight fall on Taub for a second, and then he drags Taub with him as he sits on the floor.

Well, that's one decision made: the semen ends up on Taub's shirt, on Foreman's pants, and on the floor. Taub shakes his head, wipes his hand as clean as he can get it, and sits with his back to the shelves.

The floor's a lot less comfortable the second time around. Taub gives a pained groan. The Vicodin must be wearing off, because his spine is suddenly reminding that he wasn't built for this kind of thing. Although Foreman was right about the rest of it. He actually got dizzy from coming. That has to be a first. His head falls back against the boxes behind him. "That was awkward."

Foreman's spread out meditatively beside him, and he chuckles at Taub's complaint. Taub expects him to demand an explanation or a review of the judges' results, but he only shifts around and stands up, adjusting his trousers and doing up the zip. Taub has no idea why Cuddy doesn't keep _him_ on a steady dose of Vicodin, because it makes him almost mellow. When he offers Taub a hand, Taub grabs hold and lets Foreman haul him to his feet. He takes a moment to brush at his shirt, and thinks at least he's lucky enough to have a clean one in his locker and a dry-cleaner who won't ask questions.

In silence, Foreman helps him shove the HR files back onto their proper shelves. "Did you really come down here because you were looking into House?" he asks finally, when they're done.

"No," Taub says. "I was looking for myself."

* * *

The voice announcing the end of the Code Seven comes like a breath Taub didn't know he was holding. He shoots Foreman a sardonic look, and can't help asking, "We don't have to tell anybody what we--"

Foreman shakes his head. "Nah."

Taub trusts him. Not Foreman's discretion; he actually trusts _Foreman_. That's almost the most surprising thing about the entire night.

He follows Foreman upstairs, no longer high, but drifting on the last lax confidence of the Vicodin. He grabs his suit coat and heads for the door, thinking about dinner, about Rachel. About how relaxed he feels, although not about why.

Hope doesn't accomplish as much as most people like to think. Taub hates sounding like House, but it's true. Taub's marriage is happy--has been happy--because he can compartmentalize. He assumes Foreman has the same capacity to invent a big mental cardboard box for everything that happened this evening, just like the ones housing all those HR files. He'll scrawl 'not worth thinking about' on the outside, shove it into the back of his mind, and leave it at that.

At least it's something that can't be digitized. Any real assessment of Taub life would have a list of mistakes to go with his achievements. Taub's file might look cleaner than a lot of people's--far cleaner than Foreman's--but it's a lie he's learned to live. Failure is only failure if someone carves it on your headstone.

It's almost comforting to have a permanent record. Paper isn't evidence of intent. And it can't cover over everything he's done wrong. No file can chart what's written in his skin, in the person he's become. Taub's not a person he would have liked twenty years ago. Stoned sex with Foreman in the hospital basement? Cheating just to pass the time, to make a moment better than it could have been? He's hardly a model of achievement. But he knows it; and he's leading a life that is, to say the least, interesting.

Maybe all he needs is to take perfection as it comes.


End file.
